


The One Where You Steal a Baby

by Rassaku



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: M/M, Mawwiage, those crazy kids are at it again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 10:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20406502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rassaku/pseuds/Rassaku
Summary: In which someone let those hooligans become parents.





	The One Where You Steal a Baby

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel/companion piece to _A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood_, but it can function as a standalone story. Takes place about a year after "The Old College Try."

It's a quiet evening, sort of.

Gene and Alex are in their dorm room; there's some kind of game going on outside that involves their neighbors thudding up and down the hallway and whooping like howler monkeys, but the room itself is a little bubble of peace. Alex's music (“Grammis-award-winning Swedish electronica,” apparently) is playing softly from the computer speakers, and they're curled up together on the twin bed doing their respective course reading.

Gene's trying his best to concentrate—he likes subaltern studies, he really does—but his eyes are starting to glaze over at all the post-modernist jargon, making him feel dumb, and then making him annoyed with the author for making him feel dumb, because he's _not._ He's about to ask if Alex wants to pop out again and get dessert before the cafeterias close, when someone's phone—Alex's phone—buzzes from the desk.

Alex unwinds his arm from behind Gene's head and scoots across the bed to answer it, making a small noise of surprise at the name on the display before putting it to his ear.

“Hey!” he says warmly. “Haven't heard from you in ages, what's up?”

Gene listens to the conversation with half an ear, listens to Alex go through catching-up pleasantries with whoever's on the other end. The post-modernism feels like a lost cause, and Gene counts how many pages he has left to read; wonders how many pages he has to read _tonight_, whether he can cram the rest in tomorrow morning before class. 

Then there's a change in the atmosphere, and he feels Alex's attention dart to him, a brief sidelong flicker.

“Yeah?” Alex says into the phone. He reaches for Gene, seemingly out of instinct, his palm settling over Gene's ankle. He listens for a moment, then an odd look comes over his face. “Do you... have one you're trying to give away?” he asks, as if the question is a slightly absurd one. At the response, his eyes go wide. “Jesus, _Lisa—_!” 

Gene can hear as the other person—Lisa, apparently, the name rings a bell as one of Alex's old high school friends, or ex-girlfriends, Gene isn't clear—overrides whatever he was about to say, and Alex subsides to listen, with only a frown and a few muttered profanities.

“Well... uhh,” he says when she finally goes silent; it's uncharacteristically inarticulate for him. “I'm... honored that you thought of me. I...”

Gene thinks he hears Lisa laugh, and she starts talking again but he can't make out the words.

“No, no,” Alex interrupts her hastily. “I'll talk to him about it... Yeah. I appreciate it... I'll get back to you... Alright... you take care—will do. Bye bye.”

He thumbs the phone off and then lets out a short, crisp exhale as he puts it down in his lap and turns to Gene.

“So that was Lisa,” he begins. “She's a—” he waves a hand “—friend of mine from high school.”

A friend he used to have sex with, in other words. Alex has a lot of those. “Yeah?”

“Apparently she got knocked up.”

_Bit late for it to be Alex's, _ is Gene's first, irreverent thought, but right on its heels comes a moment of heart-stopping terror—a feeling of vertigo like the floor dropping out underneath him—because if it  _is_ Alex's kid, and it just took her this long to tell him, then...

Then suddenly he stands to lose _everything._

Because he knows Alex. He knows that Alex feels responsible for even the briefest of his flings, that he's determined to do right by them; knows that Alex loves kids, is amazing with them, would love to be a father. And Alex loves Gene too, of course, but if it came down to a choice between his _responsibilities, _ paired with the future he's dreamed of, versus Gene, then—

“And she was asking,” Alex continues, watching Gene carefully, “if we wanted it.”

Gene blinks. “We. Like, you and _me_?”

“Yeah”

“If we wanted—the baby?”

“Yeah.”

Gene finds himself blinking some more. “Like—to keep?”

That manages to puncture the tension of the moment and Alex lets out a shaky laugh, like he's relieved to see that they're on the same page. “I _know_. And she said she's not going to be offended if we say no, she plans on putting the kid up for adoption regardless, but _if_ we want it, we've got first dibs. Her words, not mine.”

And in a moment of clarity, before reality kicks in, when the picture in his head is nothing but him and Alex with a child that's _theirs, _the three of them together as a _family,_ something slots into place and Gene thinks, _yes._

Then reality comes rushing back in—the two of them _and a baby_ in a 10-by-15-foot dorm room, with their hallmates stomping up and down in the corridor right outside. Twenty years old, barely even able to support themselves, both of them taking full courseloads and squeezing part-time work into evenings and weekends.

“I—” Gene begins. Alex looks up at him. “She's never even met me,” Gene says dumbly, as if that's the most salient point here. “Why would she trust me with her kid?”

“Aha.” Alex rubs the back of his head. “I may have told her a lot about you, after the shit with my parents went down. She said you sound, quote, 'pretty legit.'”

“Oh, well then.”

And Alex is looking at him like—

_Like he wants you to want this too._

—but it doesn't matter whether Gene wants it, because they're still broke and twenty years old and living in a college dorm.

“Where would we even _put _a baby?” Gene asks. He has a sudden vision of making a nest for one in his sock drawer. “We live in a dorm room. Are we allowed to have a baby in the dorms? We're not allowed to have pets.”

Alex makes a face. “I don't think a baby counts as a pet?”

“It _should._” 

Seriously, if he's not even allowed to keep a hamster in his room, how the hell is it okay to keep  _another human being?_

He's pretty certain it wouldn't be allowed in this building, but—

“Maybe the graduate housing?” Gene hears himself suggest. “They do have dorms for...” _married couples_ “...families. It might be reserved for graduate students though.”

He sees Alex draw in a tentative breath. “I don't know if it's just for graduate students, or if it's for any students who have kids,” he says. “But I do know that it's not any cheaper than renting an apartment off-campus.”

Which is something they've already discussed before (because seriously,  _fuck _ the dorms) and concluded they can't afford. Gene's dad might be willing to up his allowance if he asked, but Alex's scholarship seems to think that $400 a month is all he needs for room and board. And yeah, they're both hustling for whatever extra income they can make in their off-hours, but...

“If we can't even afford off-campus housing, then there's no way we can afford a baby,” Gene says. And it's nothing more than what they both already know, but he still hates to have to be the one to say it.

Alex sighs and his shoulders slump as he looks away, but he doesn't try to argue with that. “Yeah. It hurt just to pay the fifty bucks for that fucking parking ticket last month. And I get the feeling that babies cost a lot more than fifty bucks.”

“Rumor has it,” Gene agrees.

“Oh well. I'll tell Lisa thanks-but-no-thanks.”

And that's the end of it.

*

Or it should be.

*

“Jesus H. Christ,” Alex says, a few days later. He's looking at his computer screen in disbelief.

Gene looks up from his reading. “What?”

“So I googled 'how much does a baby cost.' They're saying it averages $10,000 for the first year.”

“_What?” _

Gene sets his book aside and gets up to stand behind Alex's chair, leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. It's a checklist of expenses, from childcare to diapers to the endless array of baby accessories.

Alex scoots back in the chair to make space, and Gene comes around and takes a seat between his thighs. Alex loops his arm around Gene's waist and rests his chin on Gene's shoulder as they slowly scroll down the list.

“Saving for college, christ,” Alex mutters. “I can't think about that now. I can't even pay for my own fuckin' college.”

“Fifty bucks for a _diaper bag,_ who has that kind of money?” Gene asks aloud. “Couldn't you just pick up a five-dollar backpack at Goodwill and carry your diapers around in that? What makes a diaper bag so special?”

“Beats me,” Alex says. He types in _5 _instead of _50 _in that space, and the sum at the top of the page dips down infinitesimally.

They go down the list, unchecking items as they go—they don't need a breast pump, they can forgo a doorway jumper (Alex had to google that too), they can decorate a nursery for less than the $150 the site estimates. But Gene feels his heart sinking a little further with each tick, with everything that's either an expense they can't afford or a corner he feels guilty for cutting.

Halfway down the page, on _mobile, $30, _Alex stops. He takes his hand off the mouse and tucks it into Gene's in his lap, and for a long moment neither of them says anything.

Then Alex draws in a breath. “If it were for me, I could do without half this shit,” he says quietly. “I don't mind a lack of—frills. It's fine.”

“Yeah.” Gene squeezes his hand.

Because Alex is voicing what Gene's feeling too—that he doesn't care that they live cheap and bare bones. He doesn't care that they spend their Saturdays at the park or the library because they don't have the money for other entertainment. They have each other, and he'd be happy no matter what they're doing, as long as they're doing it together, but—

“But it doesn't feel right to make that decision for someone else,” Alex finishes. “Not someone who never got a say in it. Sure, kids can survive without a—fuckin' thirty-dollar mobile, or fifty bucks worth of toys a month. But they shouldn't have to.”

“Yeah.”

Alex tucks his chin to his chest and rests his lips against Gene's shoulder, and Gene feels him sigh. Then he reaches up and closes the window.

“Oh well,” Alex says. “It was a nice idea.”

And that's the end of it.

*

Or it _should_ be, because they've established they can't afford it, case closed—right?

And yet Gene keeps finding himself coming back to the idea, picking at it, going, _okay, but what if—?_

It's evening again, and they're in their room. Alex is cooking, because he is both very ambitious and very resourceful when it comes to what he can accomplish with nothing but a microwave and toaster oven; Gene has been rereading the same page of his American history textbook for twenty minutes, until he finally gives up and lays the book down in his lap.

“What if we took out student loans?” Gene asks aloud, though he keeps his eyes on the spine of the book, not on Alex's reaction. “Ten-thousand dollars really isn't that much for a loan, and I haven't taken out anything yet.”

In the corner of his eye he sees Alex look up and watch him for a long, steady moment. Then Alex sighs and bends his head again to where he's chopping mushrooms for a risotto, of all things.

“It's not just the money,” Alex says.

Gene feels his nervousness lessen, to know that he's not the only one who's still hung up on this, and also paradoxically intensify, because what they're discussing here is kind of terrifying.

Alex continues, “We don't have  _time_ for a kid right now. We're both taking over fifteen hours a semester, plus the extra credits I'm doing for my teaching certification, plus both of us are juggling part-time jobs. Something would have to give. I can't see this working without one of us dropping out of school.”

“Daycare...?” Gene ventures.

“...would be _thousands _of dollars more.”

“Alright.” Gene draws in a breath. “Then it should be me.”

Alex's head comes up sharply. “_Gene_.”

“I mean it. You're closer to finishing your degree—”

“My _useless_ degree—” 

“And mine's not?”

“There's plenty of jobs that are happy to take an English degree, what the hell am I going to do with a B.A. in music?” Alex demands.

This is a discussion they've had before—whether it's worth it for Alex, cut off from his parents' support, to keep pouring money into a music degree.

“More than you'll do with only three-quarters of one! I'm not going to let you get stuck playing violin at an Olive Garden for the rest of your life,” Gene says heatedly.

Alex spreads his hands wide. “It's better money than busking, and I'm not good enough to do anything else with it!”

“Which is why you can't drop out. You need to finish your degree, and finish getting your teaching certificate, so you'll have more options.”

“Gene...” Alex shakes his head. “I'm not going to make you be the one to drop out either.”

“I can come back to it,” Gene insists. “But if you drop out now, you're not going to be able to get your scholarships back.”

“And if you drop out, life's gonna get in the way and the odds of you coming back to finish it are pretty goddamn low. I can't—” Alex breaks off. “I can't be the one to do that to you.”

“Straight people get knocked up all the time, and they manage to make it work,” Gene argues.

“Straight people _ruin their fucking lives_ that way, they're really not the model we should be following!”

They're both breathing hard, eyes locked on each other. Alex is the one to break it first, dropping his gaze and sighing. “I'm sorry.”

“Me too.” Gene pauses, then offers like a peace token, “Maybe we can get a cat instead?”

Alex cracks a tired smile. “Stick it in a onesie, and no one'll ever know the difference.”

And that's the end of it.

*

Or it _should be._

*

Because here's the thing: they don't talk about the future. They never have.

It's the one place where Alex's fearless outpouring of words dries up and Gene doesn't dare venture without him. Because they've never been anything but truthful with each other, and the truth is that—regardless of how they feel now—college romances (_first _romances) don't usually last.

There's never been anything on the horizon that would portend a breakup, but with Alex's list of ex-lovers like a phonebook, it'd be naive for Gene to think that he'll be where it stops, naive to imagine that his own list might only ever have one name on it. Alex is his first boyfriend—his first love, really, he can say that and know it's true—but everyone knows that first loves only _feel_ like they're meant to be forever-loves.

Alex has experience (lots of it) with the ebb and flow of relationships; Gene may not, but he's pragmatic enough not to delude himself into thinking that theirs will be the exception. And so for the first full year that they were dating, they didn't make plans that anticipated them still being together three months, six months, a year down the road. They could have traded rooms between semesters and moved in with each other, but Alex didn't suggest it and so neither did Gene.

It wasn't until after the incident with Alex's roommate that something shifted, that the terrain between them began to change. When Gene went toe-to-toe with the university officials, hotly demanding justice on Alex's behalf. When Alex drew a line in the sand and chose Gene over his own parents, and Gene became, in a staggering way, the only family Alex had. They'd weathered those storms together, fought for each other and been each other's fiercest advocates, and afterward Gene could feel them sinking into each other more deeply, cleaving together more closely.

There'd been no discussion about their living arrangements over the summer, never any doubt that they would be rooming with each other. Gene was just as happy not to let Alex out of his sight, still bristling with protective fury—at Alex's roommate, at the useless administration, at Alex's parents and their willful lack of empathy. Determined to pour every ounce of affection he had onto Alex, as if that could make up for all the other wrongs that had been done to him. That if love was all Gene had to give, he'd give it freely.

(Alex, for his part, had seemed almost stunned—like he hadn't expected Gene to believe him, or rise to his defense. Like he'd never imagined anyone would bring so much righteous anger on his behalf.)

Living together over the summer had been an experiment, perhaps. An experiment on a time limit, so that even if it failed, if it turned out they couldn't tolerate that much of each other, then at worst it would be over in eight weeks. Gene could go back to rooming with Craig, and Alex could try his luck at roommate-roulette again.

(Gene _hated_ that idea. The first time he'd passed Alex's old roommate on campus afterward, he'd been _livid,_ and nearly thrown a rock at the guy's head.)

Living together had felt like a game at first—like playing house, playing at being grown-ups. Reveling not only in the unprecedented luxury of being able to spend the night together, every night, but of waking up together, eating breakfast together. A kiss goodbye in the mornings before they went off to their separate classes, _Have a good day at work, dear, _like something they could only say as a joke at first. Looking forward to coming back to their room at the end of the day, to coming _home _to each other, going to sleep together, and then getting to do it all over again, every day.

It didn't feel real that summer. It felt like a holiday, and when the holiday was over they'd go back living to the real world. But it was with only minimal discussion (and sincere apologies to Craig) that they let that arrangement carry over to the fall semester, and suddenly everything was different. It was especially striking when contrasted with the other students on their wing, the same age but somehow living a completely different kind of life.

_We live like we're married already, _ is a thought Gene's had before, though he hasn't voiced it aloud. 

They're _together, _their lives intertwined both materially and emotionally in a way beyond roommates, beyond run-of-the-mill college boyfriends. They pool their finances, they do each other's laundry and run their errands together; they're both on the insurance for the World's Shittiest Geo Metro, and when Alex cooks, he cooks for two. That even hampered by the confines of student life, even in this liminal state between adolescence and full adulthood, their life together has been taking shape.

It's stable, and it keeps building on itself, and with each small step into deeper intimacy, Gene thinks, _yes, this is what I want, and I want more. _

They still haven't sat down and talked about the future, but little by little it's begun creeping in around the edges of what they do say, the unspoken acknowledgment that what they have, they intend to keep having, this and more. No proper plans yet, but sidelong allusions, increasingly frequent, to _when we move out of the dorms and finally have a proper fuckin' oven,_ or _when the World's Shittiest Geo Metro finally gives out, you think we could afford a hybrid?_

The future, the idea that they _have _a future, is still daunting, but it's slowly becoming less inconceivable.

It's why, when Alex's ex-girlfriend calls and offers to give them a baby, neither of them says _that's ridiculous, _neither of them says _I don't want that._

Neither of them says _no._

*

And it's why, later that night, when Alex and Gene are lying awake in bed, Alex takes a deep breath and says,

“I could talk to my parents.”

*

He doesn't, though—not right away.

And honestly, Gene's not even sure if he wants Alex to. The money would be nice, but they've proven that they can get by on their own, they don't need Alex's parents and their gifts that always come with strings attached. Gene's seen what they do to Alex, and he's not eager to let them get their hooks in him again. 

“Are we even _allowed_ to adopt if we're not married?” Alex asks one day, sitting cross-legged on the bare mattress. Gene has a load of laundry in progress, so the sheets have been stripped and they're both lazing around in their boxers. 

“Maybe?” Gene says. He's laying across the bed with a Georgette Heyer novel instead of his course reading.

“What would they put on the birth certificate? Who would be the legal guardian?”

“Both of us? I don't know. Unmarried straight people have babies all the time, and they manage the paperwork somehow.” Gene reflects on it for a moment. “Except I think they're a lot stricter with adopting parents, so maybe not.”

“I mean. We _could _get married,” Alex muses aloud. “We're legally adults, it's not like anyone could _stop_ us.”

And it's not an offer, exactly—it feels like just another hypothetical, when he says it. But then it's like the moment the words leave his mouth, he realizes what he just suggested and the air between them freezes. Because they've never talked about this either, but it's true:  _they could get married. _ No one could stop them.

Gene marks his page and sets the book aside, carefully pushing himself up on the bed.

“Alex,” he says slowly. “Are you... proposing to me?”

And Alex looks half-terrified where he's watching Gene—but he doesn't say no. 

Gene swallows, and a shaky laugh escapes him. “I think that's the worst proposal I ever got.” He pauses. “Though in fairness—also the best. Alex... do you _want _to get married?”

The question seems almost ludicrous—like they're doing this wildly out of order, like maybe this is something they should have talked about before talking about a _baby._

But the idea of a baby is just that—an idea. It's a thought-exercise, no more real than the hypotheticals in Gene's math homework: _If Alex and Gene take out a loan with a $10,000 principal and a 3% compounded interest rate, to be repaid over ten years, how fucked are they?_

The idea of a baby is still impossibly distant, despite how much they've been talking about it recently, but getting married is something could really, truly do. They could do it right now—they could go to the courthouse and fill out that paperwork _today, _they could take that step, they could re-map the future _right now._

They don't need ten thousand dollars to get married, all they need is to want it.

Alex draws in a breath and averts his eyes. Gene, watching him, feels himself blindsided once again by Alex's beauty—staggeringly beautiful, the finely-drawn lines of his profile. Beauty that makes Gene's breath catch, that makes him want to reach out and touch, to remind himself that it's real, because this is a miracle he'll never get used to, the idea that something so beautiful could be for him.

“I've... had sex with a lot of people,” Alex begins hesitantly.

“I know,” Gene says. He does; they've talked about this. He's not going to be offended that Alex isn't wearing white at the wedding.

“I've dated a lot of people,” Alex continues. “I've had a lot of fuck-buddies, friends-with-benefits, whatever you want to call them.”

Gene's still not sure where this is going. “Yeah.”

“But there's never been anyone else who made me feel the way I do for you. I've been around enough to know that what we have is... something really special. Something really rare.”

There's a _but _coming.

“But you... you haven't.”

And Gene knows that Alex doesn't mean it cruelly, but it's hard to hear those words without a stab of hurt. It's the same _you're too young to know how you feel_ that the adults in Gene's life have been hinting at for nearly as long as they've been dating, and it stings to hear it from Alex too, of all people.

“I mean, I basically kidnapped you the moment you set foot outside the closet,” Alex says, an edge of agitation rising in his voice. “Licked you and called dibs. Planted a flag and never let anyone else even have a chance. You never got to... look around and see what else is out there. Hell, for all we know, this is only a fraction of what you'd feel for someone else. Plenty of people convince themselves that the first person they fuck is supposed to be their one true love forever and ever, and they're usually wrong. How would you know if I'm the one you should marry, when you've got nothing else to compare this to? 

“So—yes, Gene, I want to marry you.” A breathless laugh escapes him, like it's a confession that he's relieved to have out. “God, yes, I do, so much yes. I want us to live together somewhere that's not a dorm and fill it with all the stuff that makes up our lives, I want us to have a home together. I want to sleep with you in a bed that's not a fuckin' twin. I want—jesus, this is dumb.” He tips his head back, blinking hard. “I want to go Ikea shopping with you. And share a bank account, and sign paperwork together and see my name in writing next to yours. I want everything I do to be with you. I want the rest of my _life_ to be with you, and I'm ready for that life to start right now. I'm done looking, I know you're the one I want. Yes, I want to marry you.”

_And you think I don't want all that too? _ Gene can feel dampness on his eyelashes, can feel his face threatening to crumple, because the picture Alex is painting is everything he ever wanted, except for the 'but' that he can still hear coming.

Gene swallows. “But...?”

Alex drops his eyes, looking tired and unhappy. “But I don't know if  _you_ should marry  _me_ yet.”

“So—what?” Gene says. He can hear his voice rippling over the tightness in his throat, swallows it down. “You want me to go fuck around and come back before I'm allowed to say yes?”

Alex flinches. “No. I don't want that at all. But I don't want to... take advantage of you.”

“_Take advantage—_Alex, I'm not some blushing virgin you're despoiling!”

“You were!” he bursts out. “Gene, that is literally, _exactly_ what you were when I first got my hands on you, a blushing virgin! Jesus, how you blushed the first time I was getting inside your pants.”

“That's because you were—” Gene flails his hands “—_talking. _But I'm not a blushing virgin _now._ I could take these skills on the road if I wanted to, but I don't.”

“You don't know that,” Alex insists. “You've never tried with anyone else. And at this rate, you're never going to, because you're going to give me the best years of your life—”

_I want to give you **all** the years of my life, _ Gene thinks.

“—just because you don't know what else is out there, and sooner or later you're going to regret it—”

“_Alex,_” Gene cuts him off, and Alex falls mercifully silent. Gene picks up his hand, folds it between his own. “I am never, ever going to regret my time with you.

“So yeah, okay—maybe I haven't dated anyone else. But it's not like I don't _meet _other people. I meet guys all the time—gay guys, hot gay guys, hot gay guys who've shown an interest in me. And I'm not not-dating them just because you staked your claim first. If I wanted to be with someone else, I would be. Or I'd be trying to be. Whatever. 

“My point is, I don't. I'm not interested in dating anyone else, I've never _been_ interested. For chrissakes, I've never even been curious. I'll be hanging out with some other guy and it's always like, 'Yeah, he's nice, whatever, how much longer until Alex gets out of class?' 

“Alex... you think that I need more experience before I can know what I want, but all I can think is that letting go of you would be the biggest mistake of my life. I am so in love with you that it... it blows my mind sometimes. Like—that all the feelings inside me are too much for me to hold, and I'm about to split right open with them. And I would be the biggest idiot on the planet if I threw that away.

“So maybe you should trust that I know what I'm talking about. Believe me when I say that I kind of want to spend the rest of my life with you too.”

He breaks off, breathing hard into the silence.

Alex raises an eyebrow, gives him a ghost of a smile. “Kind of?”

Gene smiles. “Kind of a lot.”

Their eyes meet, and there's a frozen, weightless moment, like standing on the edge of a precipice with the unknown dropping away endlessly beneath them. Then Gene takes a deep breath and picks up Alex's hand.

“Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez. Will you marry me?”

_Just say yes, _ Gene pleads in his head, pressure like a fist clenched around his heart.  _Don't psych yourself out, don't talk yourself out of it for my sake, just say yes..._

Alex inhales, squeezes his hand. “Yes,” he whispers.

Gene's breath escapes him in a rush, and he finds his heart pounding like he just ran a mile, and half of him is going _did you just...? did you really...? so that's it? this is a thing that's happening?_

Alex gives a shaky laugh. “I'm pretty sure you're supposed to give me a ring here,” he says in an attempt at levity.

“I don't have a ring,” Gene admits, feeling giddy and lightheaded. “Hell, I don't even have pants right now. How about a blowjob?”

They're going to fix that. They are going to _buy wedding rings, _he is going to _put a ring_ on Alex.

“Oh, Gene,” Alex murmurs, and he's laughing as he crawls forward into Gene's lap and wraps his arms around him. “When our grandkids ask how we got married, we are _leaving out this part of the story_.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...and yeah, there's obviously more to this, but I don't know if I'll be finishing it. I've got a bit more written, but it's pretty patchy, and I may have run out of momentum on this idea. I was just sad that I hadn't posted anything in a long time, so I figured I'd share what I did have.
> 
> You'll get the full story of "the incident with Alex's roommate" in one of the yet-unpublished chapters of _Beautiful Day_; that's not something you know about yet.


End file.
